Daily Grind

Archive, 1st Half of 2005

6/29/2005:
Well...the week has been interesting, if not entirely pleasant. I spent most of Monday in the Emergency Room. I woke up feeling a little ill in the morning, but not terrible. 20 minutes later, I was in so much pain that I couldn't even stand up. I had Joanna call 911 to get me to the ER in the ambulance. Diagnosis: Kidney Stones. It's the 2nd worst pain I've ever been in in my life (1st being the broken leg), but this was almost worse because it refused to go numb like the leg did after a few minutes. I spent a lot of time waiting at the ER, but thankfully most of it was done on a slightly elevated bed, where I was as comfortable as I could be. Later on, they gave me a morphine injection, and I slept for a couple hours, on and off, while they came and woke me and told me things and then left. I had a CT scan done. The results showed a couple spots that could become stones but were not quite yet. I think I passed one stone while at the hospital, but I can't be sure. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it should. Needless to say, I didn't go to work that day.

Yesterday, I had to get up early to do some things before work. One of those things was an interview (yay), for a position in Springfield, MA. It's not a traditional computer support position, but I'm excited about it. It would be something different, it would be close to home, it would be full time, and it would provide me with benefits. All of these things are good. I should know by the middle of next week whether I'll be hired or not. I hope to be able to give notice to my current place of employment, but if not...well, I need something better.

After my interview, I ran a few errands, then drove to work. At that point, I was very tired, but felt I would wake up. That never happened. By 12:00, I knew I wasn't going to make it even until lunch. I drove home and slept for 2 hours, only feeling a little better. I had a headache, which lasted through most of the day and evening, in spite of the 600 mg of Motrin I took (1 pill - prescribed the previous day for pain) and an Aleve I took later. I felt worn out all day, as if my body was still working to rid itself of bad things. That's why I don't think the final stone has been passed yet.

I feel pretty much the same today as yesterday, but less tired. My stomach and head feel sick on and off, though generally not at the same time, thankfully. I did make it to work today, and have so far survived (it is now 6:00 pm). Hopefully I can make it through the rest of the evening, and get paid for at least 1 full day this week.

There have been some good parts of this week. Joanna is here; of that, I can never be too thankful. She has kept me constant company in my illness, and has taken care of me as she is able. I can never thank her enough. I had a job interview, and a promising one at that. I finally got my car fixed today, so it is no longer leaking coolant. It cost a little more than expected, which is not happy, considering how much work I've missed, but I cannot worry about that now. I'll pay it off. I always do. Hopefully I'll feel even better with another good night's sleep tonight.

Just a few more days until we go to VT, of which we're both excited. I hope I feel better for the trip.

6/16/2005:
My stomach is still feeling crappy, but at least I'm a little more awake. I actually slept through the whole night last night without waking. First time this week. It can only help. Two nights ago, I learned my car is leaking coolant. Took it to Midas yesterday morning - it's leaking out of the one of the feed hoses; thankfully, it's not a radiator leak. They had to order the part to fix it, which came in this afternoon. I'll have to take it to get fixed tomorrow afternoon. In the meantime, I carry a gallon of water in the trunk in case it needs a refill mid-journey. Yay more stress, and more $ to spend that I don't really have. A friend offered to have her Dad look at it, but I already told Midas to order the part, so I'll take it there to be fixed. Hopefully that will be the end of car problems for awhile...

Nearing the end of my week, thankfully. It's been long, sickful, and stressful. Tonight, I'll hopefully get some UT in with the clan. And tomorrow, Joanna arrives, and things will be in a state of much happiness.

6/14/2005:
I've had a good past couple of weeks. Two weekends ago, I traveled down to southern NY state to spend time with my family. On Saturday, we took the train down to NYC to see a play, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. The play was very entertaining. After the play, I got to meet John Lithgow in person, and shake his hand! He is a very nice man. We got a picture of all my family gathered around him. It was quite cool :) In case you're wondering how we got that hook-up, my Uncle Phil's wife Jamie was nanny for Mr. Lithgow's children. :)

The next day, we attended my cousin Dustin's high school graduation. Afterwards, we all got together at cousin Shawn's (Dustin's Mom) house, which turned out to be a family reunion for my Mom's side of the family. We had Mom, her siblings, their children, and in one case, their children's child. It was a really great time. I finally got to meet my cousin Sherry and her husband Ron, who live in Colorado. Also, I got to see my cousin Perry, whom I last saw when I was about 2 years old, and meet her husband Bill and daughter Sarah. There were others I hadn't seen in over 15 years. What a wonderful get-together! :)

Last week was pretty good as a whole. I had Monday off, so I could come back from my family get-together at my leisure. The work week wasn't too bad (that I recall), though the weather was disgusting. It felt (and still feels) more like August weather than June.

Friday, we played Pete's campaign for the first time in about 2 months, and that went well. Steph came back to join us, again playing Enelya. We are feeling a void, though, as Bryan has moved away :( I have taken over playing Oskar for now. I miss having Bryan there to play with us.

The rest of the weekend was comprised of a lot of gaming and creativity. I wrote a couple of poems, at least one of which I will post here in time. I also got some work done on one of the stories I'm currently working on. And I played a lot of games. Mostly with Jesse, but Rob, Sean, and Roland were in there as well. UT2004. Warcraft III. Starcraft. The Kingdom of Loathing. It was great. Also felt accomplished, as I got necessary errands done: shopping, new brake pads for car, cleaned up apartment. All in all a very relaxed weekend.

This week? Not so good so far. For the past two nights, I have not been sleeping well at all. I toss and turn. I wake constantly. I left work at 4:30 yesterday, because my stomach felt so sick. Today, I am still exhausted, but working a full day. Hopefully I can sleep well tonight, and will feel that much better tomorrow.

Joanna is coming friday!!!

5/31/2005:
A very excellent weekend spent in VT. Spent most of saturday over at Jesse's parents' house, hanging out with Jesse, Jeff, and Jesse's sisters Anne and Becca. We played badminton in the rain, then later in the near-dark, until we couldn't see the birdies anymore. We played with the dog. We played Naval War. We played Pirates of the Spanish Main, a Wizards of the Coast card/ship game that is very fun. We talked, about fun stuff and serious stuff. It was an awesome time.

Sunday I spent at my parents' place, spending time with the family. We got a lot of work done in the garden. Jeff and I were happy to help; it felt good to get out and work for awhile. We also attended the Middletown Springs Memorial Day parade that afternoon, where I got to see most of my local family. Retired back to my parents' house afterwards for sandwiches and more relaxing, then finally got around to leaving for MA around 5:30.

I came into work yesterday, from 2 - 9, and took maybe 8 calls all day. It was certainly worth coming in to get paid for that :)

Since coming back to MA, I've been feeling...disconnected. I haven't really felt grounded since I got here, until today. I think returning to my daily routine helped. I really got to relax over the weekend, and it did me a lot of good, I think. Just had a hard time coming down off that relaxing feeling and focusing on anything afterwards. Working today helped. Writing this out helps. Getting some work done on my stories would probably help, too. I've got a few in the works... :) Hopefully I won't feel so...floaty...as the week goes on.

While walking in the beautiful VT air on Saturday evening, I talked to my Mom about the work I (we) do in the Realms. I was brief and did not go into much detail, but the point was made. It's something that means a lot to me, and as time goes on, it will not fade nor grow less important, so I felt it was time to talk about it. Plus, it has a connection with my stomach illness, and for that reason also I felt she should know. She accepted what I said, and the words I stumbled over, because it's not an easy thing to explain.

On that same note, as I grow more solidly connected to the Realms, the better I've been feeling, as of late. Things are probably going to get a lot more hectic before they calm down again, and I hope I can maintain my good (ish) health throughout.

Page Updates:
- updated Dragon-Rider.us main site (Happenings section)

5/17/2005:
I've been strangely...depressed, lately. I think a lot of it has to do with missing Joanna so much right now. If all goes well, she'll be here in 1 month's time, on June 17th. I hope very much that this is the case. It's growing more and more difficult to spend our time apart. But we are moving towards a time when we will no longer need to spend our lives apart. *sigh* Words cannot express how strongly I feel for her, how deep my love is, and how much I long to hold her, protect her, and be with her forever.

Just like last time :)

You scored as Mace Windu.

Mace Windu

64%

General Grievous

58%

Chewbacca

56%

Darth Vader

53%

Obi Wan Kenobi

53%

Yoda

50%

Clone Trooper

44%

C-3PO

44%

Anakin Skywalker

44%

Padme Amidala

36%

R2-D2

28%

Emperor Palpatine

22%

Which Revenge of the Sith Character are you?
created with QuizFarm.com

05/11/2005:
Last weekend was great. Jeff came to visit. It was a weekend, so, of course, it was overcast and rainy for most of it. We hung out, took a walk or two in the rain, watched movies, and played a great deal of Doom 2 :) Good conversation was in abundance, as well :)

Still researching apartments. Looked at a really nice complex in Broad Brook, CT, on sunday. Pretty, and affordable, in a small town, but just not close enough to Hartford to make it worth the move. It would only cut 10 minutes off my drive each way, and that's not enough to warrant the whole moving process, plus an extra $100 per month. The search will continue. I won't be moving until I'm hired here, anyway. I'll need to assess my financial situation at that point, and see what I can afford. That hiring will not be coming for awhile yet, if it does, but things are looking up. I've been taking calls over the LAN area for the past couple of days, and everything is going pretty well. I'll most likely be going back to an 8-5 shift sometime in the next couple of weeks, at which point I will become a full-time member of the LAN team (though still a temp, I imagine, at least for awhile). I look forward to it.

Driving up to VT after work tonight. I have a follow-up doctor's appointment tomorrow afternoon. Going to get some x-rays done on my leg, see how the healing process is going, and probably discuss the removal of the steel rod. I will have it removed at some point, but I'm not in any hurry to do it. We'll see what the doctor says. I'll be back in MA tomorrow night, and back at work on Friday.

05/05/2005:
Last weekend was enjoyable. Heather, who I had not seen in almost 2 years, came to visit. She brought her son, Jared, 9, and her daughter, Aria, 5. It was good to see all of them again. Unfortunately, the weather was mostly rainy and crappy, so we didn't get to get outside as much as we would have hoped. We did take a walk on Saturday, and didn't get too wet. Also spent some time outside on Sunday, blowing bubbles with the kids :) Heather and I had some very good, necessary conversations, much of them involving the realms and what has been going on lately. We also started work on a little project, to the approval of most (so far) who have seen it. It needs more work, and some more organization, but I feel we accomplished a lot on it for a weekend's worth of work. We pretty much just hung out all weekend, and it was good :)

This week has been going fairly well, though I grow more tired as the week goes on. One more day after this one, then the weekend. I can make it :)

Jeff is coming to visit this weekend! I can't actually remember the last time I saw him. Been too long, at any rate. Not sure exactly what we'll be doing, but I can bet it will involve some movies, video games, and good conversation :) We are planning to shoot some pool with my friends here Friday night, but that depends on what time he gets here.

My cable modem connection has been mostly crap for the past week and a half or so. I need to powercycle the modem every night in order to get online, and sometimes, it still doesn't go online. A tech came out Saturday and looked at it. He went outside to the box, and found a robin's nest in the box. He got permission to remove the next and clean out the box, but determined the problem is with the line running from the box to the apartment building. A line tech was supposed to come out Monday and fix the line, but I am guessing that never happened, as my connection is still crap. Monday night, it was actually good, so I thought it was fixed. Tuesday, the modem got a lock on its signal, but I was getting 15-30% packet loss to all sites, including servers on Charter's network. Last night, the modem was offline all night. We'll see what happens tonight... I am scheduled to have another tech come out this saturday afternoon. Hopefully he can take care of the issue. I'm hoping at this point that it's a modem problem, so they can replace it and be done with the problem.

I've been looking for apartments in Connecticut this week. Things have been looking up at work, and it's almost definite I'll be moving back to an 8-5 shift, to take a position with the LAN team here. I am looking forward to it, even though it will mean getting up a couple of hours earlier. My commute now isn't bad, but on an 8-5 shift, it sucks, as I have to deal with rush-hour traffic on Route 91 south. I'd like to move closer to Hartford, so my commute won't be so bad. Plus, if I end up hunting for another job again, being close to Hartford can only help. It's a prosperous city, and a lot of computer techs work in and around it. Plus, I'll be a bit closer to my friends in southern CT and on Long Island. And I won't be too far away from my friends in MA :) I have appointments to look at a couple of places: one in Broad Brook, CT, on Sunday afternoon, and another in Windsor Locks, CT, on Monday morning before work. The one in Broad Brook sounds really nice. And they allow cats :) That's very important :) We'll see how it is. I'm looking to move mid-summer, probably in late June or early July.

Page Updates:
- updated the Link of the Now

04/27/2005:
A quick update, but one everyone can be excited about: I am engaged! So exciting! Joanna and I are to be married! No dates set or anything right now. I'll send an email out soon, as well, for those who do not read this (and those that do). Words cannot express how awesome this is for us.

04/26/2005:
I spent most of last week in Canada, with Joanna. Needless to say, I had a great time. I left here Tuesday morning, arriving out there after about 7 hours of driving. It was a beautiful day for a drive, and I enjoyed the majority of it. My drive back was fine, too, though the weather was not as nice - it was overcast and occasionally rainy all throughout NY state. The clouds finally broke up when I got into MA (the last 90 mins or so of my drive). The time Joanna and I spent together was mostly spent cuddling, conversing, and watching movies. There were other things, of course, but I will not post them here ;)

I did finally get to meet Joanna's Dad, too, which was great. He's a very nice man, and we get along well, I find. The only bad part about my trip was my health. My stomach was acting up again all during the week, but I didn't let it stop my enjoyment of my time off. Now that I have returned home, I find my health is better, and I am happy about that. I am also more relaxed at work, now that I was able to take a short break from it. I could use another couple of days off, I think, but I can't afford it. Ah, well; that's what my weekends are for. I plan to stay home for the next couple, and enjoy some time to myself, and also with my friends.

A quiz taken:

You Are a Dreaming Soul

Your vivid emotions and imagination takes you awy from this world So much so that you tend to live in your head most of the time You have great dreams and ambitions that could be the envy of all... But for you, following through with your dreams is a bit difficult You are charming, endearing, and people tend to love you. Forgiving and tolerant, you see the world through rose colored glasses. Underneath it all, you have a ton of passion that you hide from others. Always hopeful, you tend to expect positive outcomes in your life. Souls you are most compatible with: Newborn Soul, Prophet Soul, and Traveler Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?

And another one:

You scored as Hedonism. Your life is guided by the principles of Hedonism: You believe that pleasure is a great, or the greatest, good; and you try to enjoy life.s pleasures as much as you can.

.Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!.

More info at Arocoun's Wikipedia User Page...

Hedonism

85%

Justice (Fairness)

80%

Existentialism

75%

Utilitarianism

55%

Strong Egoism

45%

Kantianism

30%

Divine Command

20%

Apathy

20%

Nihilism

What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03)
created with QuizFarm.com

Page Updates:
- updated Dragon-Rider.us main site (Happenings section)

04/13/2005:
My weekend was awesome. Played D&D on Long Island; Jen DM'd, Mark, myself, Chris, and Dave played. The campaign was good (and shall continue, I hope). Our characters worked out surprisingly well together, once we had settled into playing them. We rocked in combat, and survived well for not having a cleric (we are: fighter, rogue, sorcerer, rogue/sorcerer). The plot is good, and I look forward to continuing our search for "the half-breed" :)

Most excellent news! I'm taking some time off from work next week, and travelling up to Canada to see Joanna! It has been 3 and 1/2 months since we last saw each other, and each day feels more empty than the last without her nearby. I'll be driving out on tuesday, coming back on sunday. After today, just 3 more work-days until travel-time!

Caw!

You scored as Crow. You are the Crow. You are able to discover your own character and help others find themselves as well. You are very creative in the field you are in and tend to be the intelligent one of the bunch.

Stag

83%

Crow

83%

Bull

75%

Eagle

75%

Wolf

75%

Fox

75%

Salmon

75%

Ram

75%

Bear

67%

Dog

67%

Dragon

58%

Snake

50%

Horse

42%

Deer

42%

Which animal totem best suits you?
created with QuizFarm.com

Page Updates:
- made the sidebar scrollable, so I can add more links and it will still look good.
- moved the Planar Travel section to the main site, where it should be.

04/07/2005:
Meaning of the names that make up my name:
Jared
Descent : Hebrew
Rose : Greek

Balanced and fairminded you possess the ability to use sound reason and judgement when determined and decisive action is required. Persuasive and logical you tend to be an influential figure in your circle of friends and associates. You are extremely adaptable and this is necessary as you seem to be continually being presented with decisions of a life altering nature.

Adam
Man of the red earth : Hebrew

There is no doubt that with your great self-belief and powerful personality you are meant for positions of leadership. Others find you inspiring and you seem to attract success and good fortune easily. You have a strong mind and clear thinking giving you the ability to make quick decisions and take calculated risks. Being prepared to take one step at a time means you will be assured of achieving all your objectives.

Parker
Park keeper : English

Creative, versatile and imaginative you appreciate beauty in all forms. You have great inner strength and courage and have the ability to accept large responsibilities or challenging situations with patience and humility. Others admire these qualities and follow your lead. You are honest, discerning and self-disciplined and need to have a peaceful environment. Putting others before self your talents are used to make life better for everyone.

Names Site

04/06/2005:
Moderately lax couple of weeks. Still looking for a new job. Applied to 3 local jobs in the past couple weeks, haven't heard any callbacks yet. Hopefully I'll have some contact soon. Attended another pagan meetup last weekend. Got to see Chris, Jodi, and Rachel again. Got to meet Sheena, a very busy person who finds time to explore her spiritual calling. It was a very good meeting, though we were together less than 2 hours. We are planning another get together in a couple of weeks, which I look forward to. Good people, and ones that can help me focus my meditations and narrow my path down a little bit. I am interested in lots of things, but it is hard to devote my study to my own path when I'm spread out over so many. I can do great things in this life, just need to focus a bit :) It is nice to have new friends to help me achieve this end, new friends to talk to about spiritual things, the things we have in common, and the things we differ on :) Yay for new friends.

This weekend, I'm headed to Long Island for a D&D weekend. Jen is DMing, Mark, myself, Chris, and Dave are playing. I'm playing a kobold fighter :) I'm really looking forward to this. I love playing D&D with this crew, and don't get to do it very often.

03/25/2005:
Page Updates:
- added "Warrior's Prayer" to Scribble

03/24/2005:
Well, I was supposed to get my teeth cleaned today. I got up early and went to the dentist's office, only to be told that I "couldn't have an 8:30 appointment today, because we don't have 8:30 appointments available on Thursdays." Well, that's what the receptionist told me: 8:30 am on Thursday the 24th. That would be today. So now I need to call them later and reschedule, making sure they actually have appointments available at the time when I schedule... One would think the receptionist would make sure of this before scheduling someone for an appointment. I'm not terribly upset about the appointment not being a reality; I'm just much more tired than I would have been if I could have slept until my usual time. I suspect I'll be completely wiped by the time the day is out.

I've been rather industrious in a creative sense lately. Our last run of my D&D campaign inspired me to work more on the story based on that campaign. I wrote 13 pages or so just on last session, then went back to work on the beginning portions of the story. I think the key here is going to be "based on". I will try and keep the level of detail the same throughout, but since I'm going back over several real-time years of play, there may be conversations that did not occur exactly as portrayed, and there will be things that are not mentioned. Only my players will really know the difference, and I think I'll be forgiven :) After all, it's a story, not a play-by-play account. I look forward to when I have something marginally polished to share.

Last weekend was good and relaxed, and I look forward to this weekend being the same way. I don't have much in the way of errands to run, and that will be nice. Need to do some laundry, and hit Better Life Whole Foods on saturday. I'm getting together with Steph on saturday, to help her fix her computer. Her dialup connection just is not good for reinstalling updates after a recent WinXP reinstall. We're going to bring it to my place so we can use the cable modem to update. Figure we'll hang out and watch movies or something while we work. I think I may be motivated to finally work on some of my machines, as well, since we'll be doing that already.

Page Updates
- updated Dragon-Rider.us main page (Happenings section)

03/16/2005:
Has anyone every seen a drunken cat? Well, I haven't, but I have a pretty good idea what one would act like. An explaination? Ok. Lynx had to have his teeth cleaned yesterday, and they gave him general anesthesia to keep him out while they worked. I picked him up around 6 pm last night and brought him home. Opened the box I had him in, expecting him to get out like he usually does. Nope, he just sat and looked at me, his head weaving back and forth. I picked him up and noticed he felt like a ragdoll. I set him on the carpet, and he slumped. He took two steps, wobbled, and fell on his ass. I laughed. He took a sudden interest in the other cat. The one in the mirror. He stepped up and banged his head against the mirror, then sat back and stared for a couple minutes.

He followed me around the apartment for most of the evening, getting marginally better as time went on. I gave him a little water in his bowl, to make sure he wouldn't fall in it and hurt himself. After making sure he wasn't going to drown, I filled up the bowl. It appeared mostly that the muscles in his back legs were the most affected, as he couldn't leap up onto things; rather, he had to climb and scurry up using his forelegs, with limited help from the back. The first time he tried to jump up on my desk, he hit his midsection on the edge and fell on the floor. He appeared happy enough just to crawl up onto my lap instead. Likewise, later, at bedtime, his first attempt to jump onto the bed failed, leaving him with his head and forepaws on the bed, the rest dangling to the floor. I called him, and he pulled himself up and flopped down next to me to sleep. Quite amusing, once I got over my initial concern for his condition. The paperwork said he may have a "lack of energy". It was more pronounced than expected. I wouldn't want him like that all the time, but for the night, it was not too bad. I was glad I was able to take care of him, and today he is feeling fine.

03/15/2005:
A very good, if very tiring and busy weekend. Drove down to Long Island after work on friday. Watched Aladdin with Jen, Suzie, and Michelle. Hung out with Mark and worked on some D&D characters for an upcoming campaign. "Got my geek on", as it were. Went to bed late. Got up at a decent hour, headed over to Mark's old place, helped him pack up stuff, loaded said stuff into his car and mine, Jen wrapped up the cat, and we were off to Mark's new place. Very nice place :) Unloaded stuff, ate very tasty sandwiches, put together a desk, realized it was getting late. Showered, borrowed a shirt, headed to Serena's, hung out there for a short while, then headed to Sgt. Pepper's Pub to watch Marked play. They put on an excellent show. Back to Serena's to hang out with Jody and Serena awhile. Then back to Mark's. Then back to Jen's. More geeky conversation ensued. Then to bed. Then up in the morning, watched the end of The Cable Guy and then most of Ace Ventura (first one), then a 3ish hour drive home. So like I said. Busy, tiring, good.

Actually played some UT2004 last night on the server, with the clan. Famine, Death, Blackwatch, myself. Some damn good games. Felt good to be back into it, and I didn't even suck as bad as I thought I might, having not played the game in some 4 or 5 months. I had forgotten how much fun it was. May play some more tonight. The red horse rides again!

Page Updates:
- added "This Wind That Blows" to Scribble

03/11/2005:

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

That's right, bitches.

I'm in a strange mood. Giddy, elated, tired, all at once!

03/08/2005:
The weekend was as busy as expected. We played D&D friday night, though for a shorter time than planned. We have found a couple of exits to the dungeon we are in. The exits now need to be explored, which will happen next session. If they lead back to some semblance of civilization, we will soon be losing a party member, and I will be back (thankfully) to only playing one character. It was a good session for Robin (my rogue). Slit the throats of 3 sleeping goblins (well, four, but the fourth survived for an extra few seconds), and dropped a sneak attack on a goblin wizard, running my shortsword through his neck. Ah, the carnage.

Got a lot done on saturday. Car is clean, apartment is clean, laundry is clean. Got food shopping done, picked up cat food and litter for Lynx, hit the Chicopee Public Library and got myself a card, as well as The Indwelling, the seventh book in the Left Behind series. Also got my new prescription filled at CVS. My new anxiety drugs. They're not for everyday use; I take them to counter panic attacks or other really bad bouts of anxiety. Thankfully, so far, I have not had a reason to use them. I can hope that I never will.

After getting all my errands done on saturday, I relaxed at home for a few hours. I got to talk to my love Joanna for quite awhile, which is always enjoyable. Also got some reading done. Currently working through Watchers by Dean Koontz. It's my fourth or fifth time through the book, and it is just as good as it was the first time. Saturday night, Miranda came to visit for awhile. It was pleasant to see her again. We talked for awhile, then watched 8 Mile , as Mir had not seen it yet. A very accomplished day, followed by a very enjoyable afternoon and evening :)

Saw Constantine on sunday, with Steph, Kris, Jason, and Greg. The movie was good. Demons, angels, hell, and those trapped between it all. The movie was based on comic book characters, which I did not know until the movie started and I saw "DC Comics" on the screen. According to Kris, the characters were represented very well in the movie. That is good to know :) The effects were well done, and the story was good, though there were some things left unexplained. Or maybe I did not catch the explaination.

After the movie, we played Kris' World of Darkness game for a few hours. It had been a couple of months since we had played, but most of what was going on came back to me pretty quickly. It was an enjoyable session. The plot thickens, and our characters become more developed. I look forward to our next session.

I finally got to watch K-19: The Widowmaker last night. It was a good, if disturbing, movie about a russian nuclear submarine that becomes crippled during its maiden voyage. The movie centers around comraderie and bravery, and the lengths to which men will go to do what is right, no matter the cost.

Page Updates:
- updated Dragon-Rider.us (Happenings section)

03/04/2005:
The week has been okay. Heavy thoughts have been bothering me throughout some of it. My search for affordable personal health insurance continues, and it is not looking good. For some reason, it is impossible (literally) to purchase temporary health insurance in the state of MA. All-out personal health insurance with prescription coverage is really expensive (more than I'm paying for COBRA currently); in order to afford it, I would have to cut some things out of my life that I'd rather not. It's looking like I may end up with an MSP, which is not insurance but offers discounts on drugs and medical services. It is less than 1/2 the price of my COBRA plan, which will allow me to save some money, and will help immensely until I can get benefits at work (which will hopefully be soon).

On the job front, things are going pretty well. I've been taking calls with the Email team for the past few weeks, and have been learning quite a bit. Hopefully I'll start my training for LAN soon, and will then be able to help support and administrate our servers. Trained in both Email and LAN tasks, I will hopefully be able to join with the team on a permanent basis. While this may result in a schedule adjustment, that would be ok with me, if it helps me become employed on a permanent basis with Travelers, as opposed to the temporary position I now hold. Just as long as I do not need to come in before 9 am :) Should I be hired on full time, I may look into a short-distance relocation of my residence. I may wish to live a little closer to work, and shave some time off my commute. It's just something for me to consider, but I certainly need not worry about it right now.

A lot of ifs, which of course I worry about, even though I should not. It is always easier to console others and tell them not to sweat the small stuff than to take that advice myself, decreasing my levels of anxiety. Said anxiety has been up and down, thankfully mostly down, as of late. I have been seeing a psychologist. We meet every few weeks. Talking with her has helped to reduce my anxiety levels. Talking with all my friends helps, but the doctor knows which questions to ask to bring out what bothers me most, what causes me the most anxiety. I am thankful to have met with her. I have tried a couple medications to help with the anxiety. I posted about them before. They did not have the desired effect. I am going to stay away from the medications for a little while. We'll see how things go in the next few weeks.

Busy weekend planned. D&D tonight, Pete's campaign. I'm playing 2 characters right now, as one of our players stopped playing while we were in a dungeon, and I would rather play 2 characters than have the extra one perish. Once we get out of the dungeon, however, it will be time for her to go her own way. Tomorrow, I need to clean the inside of my car. It still smells like gasoline and snowmobile exhaust from last weekend. I also plan on having the outside washed. Need to hit Stop & Shop for foodstuffs. Has been a couple weeks since I've been. Laundry needs to be done, and I'd like to clean my apartment too. Also want to get to the library and pick up a book. I'm overdue (no pun intended) for a library card. Need to get a prescription filled, too. Plan on spending some quality time with Lynx, too. I've been away the past couple weekends, and I'm not around much during the week. Sunday, I plan to hang out with Steph for awhile in the morning. Then her, myself, Roland, Kris, and maybe others are going to see Constantine. Afterwards, we will be playing Kris' World of Darkness game. I look forward to playing my werewolf again.

03/01/2005:
What an awesome weekend. Tiring, but awesome. Drove up to VT after work on Friday; got to my parents' place around midnight. Sacked out on the couch and relaxed awhile, pet the cat, munched on food, watched part of "Old School", which happened to be on TV. Got to bed around 1:30. Was awake at 8 am. Got up, set up mom's old computer and hooked up the switch I brought with me. Got all her data files transferred over to the new machine. She's completely set up now, and I've got another box (her old Compaq) to take apart and possibly use for something. After that, hung out with mom for a couple hours. Dad called then, and I got bundled up and headed down to the shop.

My day of snowmobiling commenced soon thereafter. We drove up to my dad's hunting camp, where all the snowmobiles were. Drove them around in the fields for awhile, then off through the woods awhile longer. We rode off and on all day. Then, after dinner, we rode from 8 pm to 1 am. Awesome, awesome ride. 8 men, 8 sleds, perfect snowmobiling weather. It was clear and very cold - between zero and 5 below zero. Add a 30 - 50 mph wind as we zipped through the woods and across the fields, and that's very cold indeed. The snow was perfect. Fresh fallen powder on top, hard packed snow underneath = excellent riding conditions. Plus, we had an excellent crew: myself, Dad, cousin Oak, uncle David, Bill, Dennis, Alan, Bob. The people you ride with makes a big difference. Most were accomplished riders, and those who had not ridden much in the past picked it up quick, and were not afraid to go all out, yet were still careful and safe to ride with. There were many funny moments, but it is difficult to convey their humor here. It is better to talk about them, and even then, if you weren't there, it may not be as funny. Snowmobiling is great. There really is not anything like it in the world.

I did not get much sleep saturday night. Rode the snowmobiles for a couple more hours on sunday, eventually returning to the shop and parking them there. Not sure if I'll get to ride them again this winter or not. Even if not, the awesomeness of the weekend's riding cannot be denied, and will be remembered :)

While we were out saturday night, we also took in some amazing views. A camera really couldn't capture the beauty of the moments when we stood on mountain peaks, clear sky above, silence all around, cold air on our faces, looking down on the lights of the cities yet hearing none of the noise, breathing the fresh air, and being so happy to be alive in that moment, amidst friends and family. Makes me smile now to think of it.

02/21/2005:
Last week was pretty crappy. The previous weekend (before V-day) was pretty relaxed. Lynx had his yearly checkup on saturday. We spent about an hour at the vet's. They were really busy. It was ok, though; Lynx got to stalk around and sniff the bench I was sitting on. He also received lots of compliments from everyone, customers and staff included, mostly along the lines of "what a beautiful cat" and "what a big cat". He was basking in the glow of attention :) He got a clean bill of health, though I do need to schedule him for a teeth-cleaning soon. After returning Lynx happily to the apartment, I headed out to Better Life Whole Foods to pick up some things, then hung out with Steph for awhile. We hit the mall for a little bit, as she had some things she needed to pick up. Then we returned to her house to munch on Subway sandwiches and watch the movie Lost in Space. Sunday I got to talk with Joanna for awhile (yay), then hung out with Roland and Kris later on in the evening. I was feeling really tired all weekend, so we only got a few hours of "hang out" time in, but some is much better than none.

Monday, I felt kinda "bleh", but I worked all day. Tuesday I felt terrible, and did not go to work. Wednesday I only worked a 1/2 day. Thursday, I worked about 90 minutes. Friday, I did not work. The reason for all this crappy health was some new medication that was prescribed to deal with my anxiety issues. The medication did not help; the side effects really sucked. Dizziness, light-headedness, loss of appetite, tiredness, nausea...yeah. All sorts of nasty side effects, and I got hit with them all. I have since stopped taking that medication. I see the psychiatrist again on March 3rd. We will look into other types of medications on that day. No more Zoloft for me. Or Lexapro (that was the previous stuff, that put me to sleep). At some point, I'll perhaps find some anti-anxiety medication that actually medicates my anxiety.

This past weekend, I drove up to VT. I planned to go after work on Friday. Since I didn't work on Friday, I went up during the afternoon instead, and am very happy I chose to do so. The snowmobiles were dug out of the snow on Friday afternoon. Dad and I went for a short ride Friday night, and it was beautiful. It was clear, and cold. The stars were shining bright. It was great. Both our snowmobiles need some work, but they ran well enough for us that night. On saturday, myself, Dad, Oak, Nathan, and David went for a 3 hour ride. My machine (1990 Polaris Sport 340) was running pretty good that day, though it wouldn't idle, and was apt to stall if it was not moving. My Dad's machine (1996 Arctic Cat Jag 440) would idle, but it was having some acceleration problems, probably due to the holes in the muffler. He is looking into getting that replaced this week. It's supposed to stay cold this week, and I plan to go back up again this coming weekend to ride again on the new snow that we're getting this week :)

Also helped my mom set up her new Dell desktop computer this weekend. She is very happy to have it. I tried to put her existing 40 GB drive into the new machine, but ran into some issues. I do not feel like retyping it all, but you can read my post on Apoc.board. It was frustrating, but not debilitating. Mom can use her new machine fine; she'll just have to wait 'til I'm up there again to have her data transferred from the old machine to the new.

02/10/2005:
Last weekend was quite enjoyable. We got to play Pete's D&D campaign for a couple hours on Friday night. Our little adventurous band is advancing farther through our dungeon. We came upon some sparring goblins. Instead of killing them, they were questioned, and we learned about some interesting things, including the apparent proximity of an undead dragon. We will be avoiding that direction as long as possible.

On saturday, I drove out to Cambridge, to see Amy P, a friend of mine whom I hadn't seen in over a year. I got quite lost in the Cambridge area, while trying to find Amy's place. Thankfully, it was a beautiful day, and traffic was quite light, so I enjoyed the drive, including my self-inflicted scenic tour of the area. Upon meeting up with Amy and her friends, we drove north, towards the NH border. I'm not sure which town we were in, but we headed over to Buddy's Ranch, where we partook in a beautiful afternoon horseback ride through the forest trails nearby. After the ride, we had dinner at Applebee's. There were 8 of us, without reservations, on a saturday night. Amazingly, we were seated after not more than 5 minutes of waiting. I must say, their food has improved quite a bit over the past few years. I had a tasty BBQ chicken sandwich and a batch of very good french fries. After dinner, I drove home. It was great to hang out with Amy, and meet Randy, Aaron, Amanda, Mikee, Kim, and Jesse :)

I spent sunday for myself, by myself, and it was nice. I got errands done in the morning - went grocery shopping, and also hit Walmart and bought a new button-down white shirt for work, and a couple of T-shirts for work. Also picked up 2 DVDs - Robocop and Jurassic Park. I had forgotten how bloody Robocop is, for the time it was made (1987). I greatly enjoyed watching both movies again :) On sunday, I also got a lot of work done on my D&D campaign, and am close to completing another dungeon. Plus, I got to talk to Joanna for a few hours online, really making my day complete :)

Page Updates:
- posted the promised Mad Hatter party pics to Pics
- updated the Link of the Now
- moved previous Link of the Now to the Humor section of the Links page

02/03/2005:
So. Damn. Tired.

That is the theme for this week. I get progressively more tired as the week goes on. Feel like my body is fighting off sickness. This would not surprise me. Some co-workers are sick, my downstairs neighbor is sick, my next-door neighbor(across the hall) is sick. Friends across the country are sick. I am trying not to be. My stomach has not been very good this week, but I attribute that to the extreme tiredness. I have been eating anyway, as much as I feel I can, but sometimes it has not been good at all. I have not been sleeping well. I wake in the night, usually for no apparent reason. My cat woke me twice tuesday night. Last night, I shut him out of the bedroom, but still I woke, at least 3 times. Maybe more. I dream constantly of being late for things; late for work, late for class, late for appointments. I really dislike being late for things. But I'm not being late for things. I just dream about it. I know this is one reason why I wake; but why do I worry about the lateness at all?

I am unquiet inside. I spend my nights at home, just my cat and I, and I try to relax. I am doing relaxing things, but I am still not relaxed as I should be. I am incomplete. Joanna is not here, and I am incomplete. Her voice and her words warm me, but still I feel pieces are missing from me. Without her, there is a void inside. The time when we are together again cannot come soon enough.

I wish to meditate and coax these unquiet feelings away; calm them, because there is naught I feel I can do about them right now. But I am too tired even to meditate. The circle continues. I will burn incense tonight, and actually focus on relaxing, instead of assuming my body is doing it just because I am doing relaxing things... Maybe I can even sleep through the night without waking. Would not that be something? *sigh*

Maybe not too tired to meditate. Unsure why I wrote that. I just need to calm the heck down, for starters. I feel worn and wired at once. It is not pleasant.

Page Updates:
- cleaned up dead links all over the site (Interests, Links, Creatures of the Night section)
- cleaned up some old data on Interests page
- added Order of the Stick to my comics section on Links
- added a few more Livejournal links to Links page

01/31/2005:

Spent this past weekend on Long Island. Drove down friday night after work. The drive was pleasant, not much traffic. Chatted with Roland on the phone for the first hour or so, then called Jen and prepared to have a grilled chicken sandwich and fries ready for me when I arrived :) My friends are so great to me :) Hung out with Mark, Jen, Suzie, and the cats that night, watched The Parent Trap (the old one). Got to bed around 2 am, I think.

On saturday evening, there was a party. The theme was "Mad Hatter", and everyone was told to bring interesting headwear, and dress in "vibrant clothing". To several of us, this meant "outlandish clothing which does not match", and we put together a number of very... interesting outfits. There will be pictures posted here soon :) I had a wonderful time, and I know the others did as well. I got to see many good friends, some of which I hadn't seen in 5+ months. I was silly. I wore a strange outfit, involving a multicolored skirt (yep, you read that right), a bright red sweatshirt (with tigers!), and my green slippers. I was wearing a turban, for awhile, which Mark and I created out of some cloth I had brought. It fell apart early, though, and thereafter I wore other things: cowboy hat, straw hat, winter hat, bunny ears, fuzzy reindeer antlers with bells... yeah, as stated, there will be pictures. Oh, and Jen painted my face with sparkles, too. And a butterfly tattoo on my forehead.

Mark and I did get in a few games of Magic over the weekend, as well. Mark, Dave, Chris, and I also indulged in some classic Super Smash Bros. on the N64. It was great :) I also got to see Donkey Konga in action on the 'Cube.

And so this brings us to monday. Long, drawn out monday. Today is creep-creeping by. Health was good over the weekend (amazingly...no panic attacks, even!), but seems to be flagging today. Going home and resting tonight will be very nice. Maybe I'll even get to talk to my girl for awhile...

01/26/2005:

Spent a great weekend down in New London, CT, with Chris, Dave, Mark, Lex, Ryan, and Matt. We played the usual large amounts of Magic: The Gathering. Also, Matt introduced us to Munchkin, a Steve Jackson Games game. It's a dungeon crawl card game, medieval fantasy-ish and very funny. The text on the box reads: "Kill the monsters. Steal the treasure. Stab your buddy." It's a hell of a lot of fun, but I highly recommend not exceeding the maximum recommended number of players (6). Mark, Chris, Matt, and Dave played a 1-hour game on saturday night. Our friday night game, which included all 7 of us, took about 6 hours, I think. It was amazingly fun, as stated, but waaaayyy long with too many people.

Aside from Munchkin and Magic:TG, there was also a bit of console gaming (Resident Evil 4, Smash Bros. Melee, and Guilty Gear X), and the requisite attempt to play a LAN game. We had 6 computers there (2 desktops, 4 laptops), and decided to play a 3-on-3 game of Starcraft. We got everything set up, but ran into issues. One of the computers could not play via UDP; if UDP was selected as a mode of gameplay, the machine locked up, and Task Manager needed to be used to kill the program. So we decided on IPX. Well...one of the other computers could not play via IPX; the computer would see IPX games if they were created, but could not join them (the message was simply "Could not join game"), and IPX games hosted by that computer would only appear on the games list for a few seconds before disappearing. Possibly a frame-type mismatch there, but after fuxing with it for about an hour and a half, we decided to call it a night; Mark and I offerred to bow out if the others wished to play a 2-on-2, but that didn't fly, either. So we sat down and played a couple 3-on-3 games of "emperor-style" Magic instead :)

01/16/2005:

Page Updates:
- added "Codollaetharis - Origins" to Scribble. This piece was written for Kris, about Codollaeytharis, her Elven Fighter in my campaign. It is sung to the tune of "Good King Wenceslas".
- archived posts from the 1st half of 2004. A link to the archives lies at the bottom of this page.

01/14/2005:

Other drivers annoy me. No matter how bad the weather is, at least 25% of the people I see on my commute to work have not figured out that turning on the headlights is a very useful thing. Either that, or they are deliberately being sneaky, and wish to broadside me because I cannot see them in the rain/fog/snow/insert-messy-weather-here. Another annoyance is people who cannot see fit to change lanes to let me merge. I almost ran into a little while car yesterday. I was already having trouble seeing it because it was white and foggy out, and the car did not have its headlights on. I was merging onto 391 south, and the car was in the rightmost lane. There were 2 completely empty lanes to the car's left, but could it move over to let me onto the road smoothly? Noooo. It had to slow waayyy down, and allow me to almost merge right into it, before allowing me to merge; and at that, in front of it. It still did not change lanes! I mean, WTF. Really.

I did watch Return of the King: Extended Edition for the first time last week (purchased it the week before). Overall, I enjoyed the extended scenes. However, there were two in particular I did not agree with. I will not mention them specifically, as I know some who read this have not seen the extended edition yet. All I will say is the first is near the beginning, and the second is somewhere in the middle. Nice and vague :) If you want to talk about it, you all know where to find me. And if you do not, there is an email address situated in the sidebar, to the left. The extended scenes of different characters in combat was certainly much enjoyed, as well as most of the other added scenes.

The warm weather and rain came today and washed away all our snow. I could see green grass outside the window today. Green grass! Normally uplifting, this sight is dreary when it is during the winter months. It is supposed to get cold again, and hopefully we'll get more snow. Want to go snowmobiling! Zoom zoom!

01/13/2005:

It has been a very long week. I have been growing more and more tired each day, despite any amount of sleep I get. Plus, each day this week, I have taken more calls than on the previous day. I was feeling tired earlier today, but I'm more awake now. I also haven't taken nearly as many calls, since I had 2 hours worth of training time today, during which I learned about the different systems I will soon have access to. Yay more systems!

It has been an inspired week. I have mostly completed a write-up for another quest for my campaign. I have 11 written pages of backstory, plus 6 or so written pages of NPC information. The primary NPC is statted out, and has skills and feats. Now I need to do equipment and treasure. Oh, and roll up encounters. *grin* I have several different projects I'm working on for my campaign world. Looking over my notes, I find I have pieces of at least 2 more quests lying about. I would like to complete these before I start working on any more. Cities will probably continue to be worked on, however, throughout my quest projects. I can work on cities at work, when I have time. Quests are more difficult, as there's only so much I can do without source books. Background stories and such can be done, though, and most of the 17 written pages for the aforementioned quest were done here, on lunch break.

Our winter weather has switched over to a chilly drizzle. Hopefully not all the snow will be washed away. I would like to do some snowmobiling sometime this winter... Maybe even some skiing.

1/08/2005:

Been having quite the winter storm here throughout the day. I said I wanted snow, and by god we have it now. I did have to go out and do some errands, and cleaning off the car was fun. There was snow on top, with sleet underneath, and ice underneath that. Needless to say, the roads were slick, but all was fine as long as the speed was kept low. While I was out, the precipitation kept cycling every 20 minutes or so between snow, sleet, and freezing rain, often being a mix of all three. It was good to get out and get my errands done early. Now I can relax at home for the rest of the day :) I got some cleaning done, too, before going out. Vacuumed through, and reorganized some of the stuff in my closets, making everything easier to get to. I also finally hung up the Treebeard poster Joanna got me for Christmas :) It looks very good in its chosen location.

I've been continuing on through Doom3's Nightmare difficulty. I'm in Delta Labs, Section 2b, getting closer to my trip into Hell, where I'm sure I'll die even more often than I do now. I am quite enjoying the challenge of it all, and feel confident I will complete the game again. I've also been playing Diablo2 again. I have an assassin that is focussed solely on traps. She is very good at taking out large groups of enemies quickly, but has some trouble with tough, solo monsters. Soon she will take on Diablo himself...we'll see how that works out. She kicked Andariel's ass, and had little trouble with Duriel. Mephisto was tougher, but not too bad. Will probably need to make a few town trips during the Diablo fight, to refill on potions. She burns through mana pretty quickly, and can only take a couple hits before needing healing. Once she hits 30th and can get the blade shield, things will be a lot better. Guess that's enough game talk for now. Off to play something!

1/05/2005:

It has been two very long days. Yesterday, we awoke early (7:30), and got ready. I then took Joanna to the airport, so she could return to Canada. There was much sadness upon her leaving, but we both know she will return, and for that, there was a bit of joy even in the sadness. After seeing her through security, I drove to work, arriving early. I ended up starting 25 minutes early, because we were extremely busy. That business continued over into today; I came in an hour early to help with the call volume. They needed the coverage, and I can use the money. No complaints.

I've never considered my bed or apartment to be "big" by any means, but last night there seemed to be an awful lot of extra space...and I could only think of one person I wanted to fill it. I feel the need to rearrange some things again. Perhaps it is because I feel there are things missing, with her gone; though I can think of a couple different configurations for the rooms. Perhaps I will move things around a bit. Opening up that outlet behind my dresser would be nice. Have considered rearranging the living room, as well, but it really is already arranged in the best possible way. The TV could go up against the wall, the couch facing it, the table where the couch is now...but I just don't feel it would be as comfortable as it is now, and so it remains. And will continue to remain. Just moving my dresser around a bit in my bedroom may quench my need to rearrange things...

My dreams the past couple nights have been very vivid, and felt very real. Two nights ago, it was my Dad I dreamed about, and something about helping him with his business, and always a feeling of being late for something. Last night, my friends and I were attacked by large, gray, ravenous direwolves. They were vicious, and killed several people in my vicinity. Even when they were known to be about, people were careless: not arming themselves, not traveling in groups, etc. The direwolves would crash through windows and break down doors to get at us. We were eating dinner when two crashed through the windows and attacked, ripping the throats out of several people before we could put them down. Someone had a gun, and shot one of the wolves 3 times in the head. The other we wrestled to the ground and cut its throat with a sharp knife. I could feel the blood running down my arms and face, even when I awoke, mumbling "die..please die."

Scary.

I did finish The Dark Tower last friday. 845 pages of goodness, done in 7 days. I am now continuing on in the Left Behind series, with Soul Harvest, the 4th book. I am also working my way through The Alienist, which is about a detective team tracking a serial killer in the year 1896. It is a very interesting read. :)